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Education
The $159 Diploma
Online and correspondence high schools offer an inexpensive path to a high school credential for dropouts. But state colleges don't recognize many of the online diplomas.
Adding to the Demand
Job seekers and college hopefuls aren't the only consumers seeking diplomas online. Programs like the one offered by Continental Academy in Miramar have also attracted inmates in states like Indiana, where prisoners can shave time off their sentences by earning a diploma.
In at least a half-dozen instances, however, court records indicate the Indiana Department of Corrections refused to recognize diplomas that inmates earned from Continental Academy. According to the court filings in lawsuits fi led by inmates, including a murderer and a drug dealer, the Indiana Department of Corrections determined that Continental's program was "not accredited or recognized by the Florida Department of Education" and "did not meet the criteria of a high school diploma set by the Indiana Department of Education."
Meanwhile, Job Corps centers in Gainesville, Homestead and several other locations in the southeastern U. S. have also relied on schools like Continental and First Coast Academy in Jacksonville to provide high school completion programs for their students.
According to a 2005 lawsuit filed by Amy Stevens, a former Department of Labor employee who oversaw federal training contracts for privately contracted residential youth programs in those locations, "Job Corps students who were high school dropouts were receiving high school diplomas in just under eight weeks with often less than a sixth-grade education prior to entering Job Corps" and a "large percentage of high school diploma were being issued to students with reading scores as low as the third grade level."
According to the complaint, the "speedy issuances of non accredited high schools diplomas" helped those Job Corps Centers to rise in their rankings, making the federal contractors who ran the program eligible for "significant performance and incentive bonuses."
A spokesman for the Homestead Job Corp Center says the center now uses Philadelphia-based Penn Foster High School — which is accredited by the Commission on Secondary Schools of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools — for its online program.
